IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/67953.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Persuading voters

Author

Listed:
  • Alonso, Ricardo
  • Câmara, Odilon

Abstract

In a symmetric information voting model, an individual (politician) can influence voters' choices by strategically designing a policy experiment (public signal). We characterize the politician's optimal experiment. With a non-unanimous voting rule, she exploits voters' heterogeneity by designing an experiment with realizations targeting different winning coalitions. Consequently, under a simple-majority rule, a majority of voters might be strictly worse off due to the politician's influence. We characterize voters' preferences over electoral rules and provide conditions for a majority of voters to prefer a supermajority (or unanimity) voting rule, in order to induce the politician to supply a more informative experiment.

Suggested Citation

  • Alonso, Ricardo & Câmara, Odilon, 2016. "Persuading voters," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67953, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:67953
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/67953/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ina Taneva, 2019. "Information Design," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 151-185, November.
    2. Timothy Feddersen & Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 1997. "Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections with Private Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1029-1058, September.
    3. Gill, David & Sgroi, Daniel, 2008. "Sequential decisions with tests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 663-678, July.
    4. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    5. Feddersen, Timothy & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1998. "Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts under Strategic Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 23-35, March.
    6. Luis Rayo & Ilya Segal, 2010. "Optimal Information Disclosure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(5), pages 949-987.
    7. Jackson, Matthew O. & Tan, Xu, 2013. "Deliberation, disclosure of information, and voting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 2-30.
    8. Martinelli, Cesar, 2006. "Would rational voters acquire costly information?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 129(1), pages 225-251, July.
    9. Anton Kolotilin, 2013. "Optimal Information Disclosure: Quantity vs. Quality," Discussion Papers 2013-19, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    10. Isabelle Brocas & Juan D. Carrillo, 2007. "Influence through ignorance," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 931-947, December.
    11. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    12. Ivanov, Maxim, 2010. "Informational control and organizational design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 721-751, March.
    13. Messner, Matthias & Polborn, Mattias K., 2012. "The option to wait in collective decisions and optimal majority rules," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(5), pages 524-540.
    14. Nicola Persico, 2004. "Committee Design with Endogenous Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 165-191.
    15. Callander, Steven, 2011. "Searching for Good Policies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(4), pages 643-662, November.
    16. Wouter Dessein, 2002. "Authority and Communication in Organizations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 811-838.
    17. Hao Li, 2001. "A Theory of Conservatism," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(3), pages 617-636, June.
    18. J. Duggan & C. Martinelli, 2011. "A Spatial Theory of Media Slant and Voter Choice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(2), pages 640-666.
    19. Schnakenberg, Keith E., 2015. "Expert advice to a voting body," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 102-113.
    20. Yun Wang, 2015. "Bayesian Persuasion with Multiple Receivers," Working Papers 2015-03-24, Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University.
    21. Alonso, Ricardo & Câmara, Odilon, 2016. "Political disagreement and information in elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 390-412.
    22. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    23. B. Douglas Bernheim & Antonio Rangel & Luis Rayo, 2006. "The Power of the Last Word in Legislative Policy Making," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1161-1190, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chan, Jimmy & Gupta, Seher & Li, Fei & Wang, Yun, 2019. "Pivotal persuasion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 178-202.
      • Jimmy Chan & Seher Gupta & Fei Li & Yun Wang, 2018. "Pivotal Persuasion," Working Papers 2018-11-03, Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University.
    2. Li Hao & Wing Suen, 2009. "Viewpoint: Decision-making in committees," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 359-392, May.
    3. Alonso, Ricardo & Câmara, Odilon, 2016. "Bayesian persuasion with heterogeneous priors," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 672-706.
    4. Van Der Straeten, Karine & Yamashita, Takuro, 2023. "On the veil-of-ignorance principle: welfare-optimal information disclosure in Voting," TSE Working Papers 23-1463, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    5. Tsakas, Elias & Tsakas, Nikolas, 2021. "Noisy persuasion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 44-61.
    6. Kolotilin, Anton, 2015. "Experimental design to persuade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 215-226.
    7. Gershkov, Alex & Szentes, Balázs, 2009. "Optimal voting schemes with costly information acquisition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 36-68, January.
    8. Gersbach, Hans & Mamageishvili, Akaki & Tejada, Oriol, 2020. "Appointed Learning for the Common Good: Optimal Committee Size and Efficient Rewards," CEPR Discussion Papers 15311, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Jun Chen, 2021. "The Condorcet Jury Theorem with Information Acquisition," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-33, October.
    10. Keiichi Morimoto, 2021. "Information Use and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-22, May.
    11. Hongbin Cai, 2009. "Costly participation and heterogeneous preferences in informational committees," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(1), pages 173-189, March.
    12. Ginzburg, Boris & Guerra, José-Alberto, 2019. "When collective ignorance is bliss: Theory and experiment on voting for learning," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 52-64.
    13. Javier Rivas & Carmelo Rodríguez-Álvarez, 2017. "Deliberation, Leadership and Information Aggregation," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(4), pages 395-429, July.
    14. Malin Arve & Claudine Desrieux, 2023. "Committee Preferences and Information Acquisition," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 243-260, December.
    15. Alonso, Ricardo & Câmara, Odilon, 2018. "On the value of persuasion by experts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 103-123.
    16. Laurent Bouton & Aniol Llorente-Saguer & Antonin Macé & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2021. "Voting Rights, Agenda Control and Information Aggregation," NBER Working Papers 29005, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Hedlund, Jonas, 2017. "Bayesian persuasion by a privately informed sender," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 229-268.
    18. Dino Gerardi & Leeat Yariv, 2003. "Committee Design in the Presence of Communication," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1411, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    19. Xie, Yinxi & Xie, Yang, 2017. "Machiavellian experimentation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 685-711.
    20. Guha, Brishti, 2022. "Ambiguity aversion, group size, and deliberation: Costly information and decision accuracy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 115-133.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    strategic experimentation; persuasion; voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:67953. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.